back seat

It costs AC nothing and would mean a lot to the frequent travellers - tonoght my inbound flight got in on time and I could have made an earlier connection, BUT Nooooooo I was sent to the lounge to eat the food and drink the booze as opposed to gertting on the earlier flight.

Silly AC rules for standby on connecting flights have caused me to fly Westjet more than AC this year.

Oh well

BlondeBomber

Tiz annoying but I have had such good success that I am not complaining (only 2 where I had to pay/would have to pay if I took the earlier one in the last 15 months out of literally dozens of changes). Sometimes I am willing to pay, sometimes not. I have my best success at the gate as the flight is boarding.

mjschill

So tonight in YUL, I'm booked on the 7:30PM to YYZ. Get there at 6:30PM, and go to the lounge, and ask to go stand-by for 7PM. Agent says it's $50, but it's so close to boarding, I'd have to go to the gate to process it.

I go to the gate, the agent says, it's $50, but he's about to start boarding, so asked me to go back to gate 1 to see the Customer Service Desk.

Go to Gate 1 customer service desk...nobody there. Call YUL concierge, who says yes there is room, but is $50, and asked if I really wanted to spend that to save a half hour, so I decline.

As scripted, the 7:30 flight is only half booked, so they cancel it, and send everyone to gate 5 for the 8PM flight, except no aircraft until 7:45, so it leaves 25 minutes late.

To boot, no less than 11 AC staff in J...seriously, I had to double take and count twice, before I headed back to Row 28.

guessaaa

Assuming you only have carry-on, just show up at the gate of the flight you want to go on and say that you'd like to go on this earlier flight since you're already there and don't forget to emphasize that you have no luggage. Works for me every time. No fees.

Sopwith

Ditto.

Andrew Yiu

1930 flight was cancelled due to mechanical, nothing to do with loads.

getaround

YUL/YYZ/YUL Flights are a joke.

Last week had a YYZ/YUL, was in the lounge no changes to the screen went down to the gate 10 minutes away.

Time to board no aircraft.

15 minutes no boards updates/no plane go back to the lounge.

30 minutes later wanted to check with the lounge staff but 2 working and line up 6+ each line so don't bother asking.

Go to gate, no plane, board still states departure time 1 hr before.

Go to staff member (nicely) oh whens the aircraft expected. Sir I HAVE TOLD EVERYONE ABOUT THIS AND THATS IT. (yelled it loud so everyone could hear making me feel like a real ......).
I'm like excuse me I wasn't here I've just come from the lounge twice to the gate with no aircraft cause the boards are not updated. Sir it can only be updated once and there is a procedure; next time i suggest you ask at the lounge.

I just don't know who these people think they are sometimes; the rudeness and arrogance is completely unbelievable to me.

Sorry Ive done some ..... in the last couple of week On a better note I had so,me good crew on a LHR/YUL flight last week and a very nice AP agent today.

mjschill

Convince me.....Andrew, are you reading from a computer screen, or did you talk to someone from ground ops in YUL????

Here's what I witnessed tonight:

1. Inbound flight ( which was to be #495) arrived at gate 1 at about 7:00PM. passengers disembarked, the crew followed within a couple of minutes and left without talking to anyone at the gate.

2. From my vanatage point in front of the window at Gate #1 watching the aircraft for about 20 minutes from arrival until our cancelation was announced, not a single maintenance truck or maintenance person in site...at any point.

3. Gate agent, about 10 ft away from me, talking with another ac staff, asking what to say because she's been told that the flight has been cancelled (no discussion of maintenance issues).

4. Actual announcement did not cite maintenance as the issue. To the best I can recollect, the gate agent said "There's been a change in plans, and the aircraft at the gate isn't going anywhere. Please proceed to gate 5, there are enough seats on the 8PMflight to accomodate everyone"

5. When be pushed back on the 8PM flight, the E90 was still at gate 1, un-attended. If it's a maintenance issue, wouldn't they have towed it, or had people servicing it....doesn't AC need to get it back in the air ASAP???

Andrew, it would be refreshing to understand what the maintenance issue was. I'm usually not a cynic, however it seems when I'm booked on a rapidair flight that's under sold, it seems to get cancelled half the time.

My fully sold-out rapidair flight are never, ever cancelled, for any reason. I've sat for up to 3 hours at times in the past waiting out delays for a 45 minute flight to YUL or YOW.

Doesn't add up......

imverge

If you say so....

pmax

"Insufficient mass ratio"

Yukonprince

Same here - the "I have carry on only" seems to do the trick.

margarita girl

Send AC a bill for $50 for rebooking fee!

Honestly, this exact same scenario happened to me last year at YUL. Except my flights were all an hour apart. (Scheduled to leave at 11:00, tried to stand by for 10:00 flight. 11:00 flight cancelled. 12:00 flight left at 12:30!) So AC's refusal to let me leave an hour earlier w/o paying the stand by fee, meant I ended up leaving 2.5 hrs later than I could have. I sent a nasty note to AC and they said thank you for letting them know. It's feedback like this that helps them make decisions ... Nothing's changed!

Academic

You seem to be very lucky. My hit rate on Jazz out of YYZ has been very low. And what is most frustrating is that usually I can't book the earlier flight because I'm marginally outside a legal cnx and the next flight isn't for another 2+ hours.

SYM

Agreed. I have reasonable success everywhere else, not much higher than 0 in the YYZ T1 basement. When I point out the legal cnx issue, the standard answer is "well sir, you should buy latitude next time."

For me the most frustrating is flying BOS-YYZ-YXU. I sometimes pay the $50 in the BOS to change BOS-YYZ, even when there are no open spaces YYZ-YXU. I'm willing to take the risk that it will just mean more time in the lounge. By the time I get to YYZ, there are spaces on the connecting flight, but they want another $50. It's completely within the rules ($50 per change) but I think that's just bad customer service.

Clipper801

Or simply "bury" the change fee by adding $20 into the base fare and let everyone to do a last minute airport change "for free".

On average, how many of these last minute gate/check in change requests do AC get on a flight?